315. Leading Through the Heat: Leadership Lessons with Fire Captain Mark Andrew

When leadership gets real, titles stop mattering and habits take over. Fire Captain Mark Andrew joins me to share what he’s learned leading in the fire service, where trust, communication, and decision making aren’t abstract leadership ideas. They are the difference between a smooth operation and a dangerous one. We dig into why so many people are promoted without real leadership training, then fall back on outdated models they inherited from the leaders before them.

Mark walks me through a practical way to learn from “horrible bosses” without carrying bitterness, and how to turn those memories into a clear personal leadership standard. We spend a lot of time on active listening as a critical leadership skill, not just for morale but for better situational awareness and smarter calls under pressure. If you’ve ever wondered why teams stop speaking up, or why problems “suddenly” blow up after months of warnings, this will hit home.

We also unpack the leadership trap of swinging from micromanagement to delegation that turns into abdication, then land on the middle path Mark emphasizes: presence. You’ll hear concrete examples of delegating with follow-up, confirming understanding so people don’t leave with different interpretations, and building trust through empathy plus accountability. If you lead people in any field and want stronger leadership habits, better team culture, and clearer decision making under stress, you’ll take a lot from this conversation.

🌐 Connect with Mark:
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/markdbnfire/

📚 You can purchase Mark's book on Amazon:
• Leading Through the Heat: https://www.amazon.com/dp/196982610X/

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Transcript

Mick Spiers: 0:01

Have you ever stopped to think about what leadership looks like when the pressure is real, when the stakes are high, the environment is unpredictable, and there is no time for ego, confusion or poor communication? And have you ever wondered whether some of the clearest leadership lessons are not found in boardrooms at all, but in environments where trust, presence and decision making can make all the difference. In today's episode of the leadership project, I'm joined by Fire Captain Mark Andrew, author of leading through the heap, Mark brings a powerful perspective on leadership from the fire service a world where preparation, teamwork, trust, accountability and listening are not just leadership buzz words, but essential parts of doing the job well. Hey everyone, and welcome back to The Leadership Project. I'm greatly honored today to be joined by Fire Captain Mark Andrew and the author of a book called leading through the heat, we often like to bring people onto the show that give us a new perspective of leadership through their experiences and their lens, but also an industry that we perhaps walk past multiple times per week, and don't think about what it's like to lead in that environment. So I'm sure that there's going to be some interesting things come up here for many of us that we can translate into our own worlds, but things that we don't often talk about. So Mark, I'd love it if you say hello to the audience. What I'd love to know is what inspired you to do the work that you do today and to write this specific book, Leading through the heat?

Mark Andrew: 1:49

Well, once for one. Thanks for having me on the podcast. I am a fan of it, and I have enjoyed your book and the discussion that you bring to just leadership and management, managing people as I think, really helped the discussion of making a better workplace, and that was all what led me into it. I had started the career as a firefighter. My father was firefighter in the same department. Coincidentally, was hired there I had back in the 90s, it was very competitive. I would have went anywhere that offered me a full time job, because I had been slowly building the resume doing private ambulance in some smaller cities that only hired part time firefighters, until a full time career department gave me the call, and coincidentally, it was my father's department, and so it enjoyed being A legacy there. But then I realized, once I had two to three years done that me and my colleagues of the same seniority, us younger people on the job, were all frustrated by the same lack of leadership that we were seeing creep through occasionally while the department ran very well and they had some very talented officers. A lot of the officers through just lack of training, a lack of knowledge, some was in institutional belief and outdated models, and some was just a laziness. We would see a lot of poor leadership creep in, and we noticed it affect the actual outcome of medical scenes, fire scenes, managing the rigs, the equipment, the supplies in the station. And so we just started talking about, boy, if I ever get a chance to be a lieutenant, I'm going to try it this way, or I saw that thing happen there. Boy, if I ever get a turn, I'm not going to let that happen. And then I came to the realization, like three years I had this entire mental inventory in the back of my head of things I would want to do or didn't like, and so I, from that point on now, started intentionally compiling leadership traits that I gravitated towards, and some leadership issues that I wanted to make sure that I would avoid if given the chance.

Mick Spiers: 4:06

You're really good, Mark, I'm hearing three powerful things here. The first one really interesting to me that that you and your peers, your colleagues, were picking up the same patterns like so you were you were looking there, you were getting frustrated, but you're picking up the same I'm going to call it repeated patterns. And this is going to come to my point in a second. The second one is you said that through it was through lack of training, lack of knowledge of those leaders, or using outdated models, which is going to reinforce the point I'm now going to make, which is, this is one of my fundamental beliefs. Mark that most people land in a leadership position before they've had any training. This is why we're not going to talk about my book today. We're talking about your book. But this is why my book is called, you're a leader. Now what you. They land in leadership before they've had any training on what it means to be a leader, and then the anxiety hits of what am I supposed to do? And usually their default is to replicate the behavior of the people before them, and that's why it becomes a repeated pattern. That's where the pattern came in what I'm then seeing from you. This is the third stanza. Now, she went, Well, no, that doesn't make sense. You have stood back and you have said, well, well, when I become a leader, I'm going to do things a little bit differently, which leads me, I'm going to throw one of your own quotes back to you here, Mark, that this was my favorite part of your book. Your whole book is great. I don't want you to think that it, you know, peaked at first sentence, but the first sentence of your book is, I've been lucky. I've worked with some Horrible Bosses. Tell us more about how that shapes what you do from then on?

Mark Andrew: 5:57

It shaped me, not only through the knowledge of that, like I said, that mental inventory of traits that I gravitated towards or gravitated against, I use that to make sure that I did not hold a grudge because I didn't want to go through my career feeling bitter and angry, jealous, mad, because those are just weights. That weight you down. People talk about letting things go forgiveness, that's for you. These people don't care that they wronged you or treated you poorly or yelled at you in front of your peers. So why would you burn your career with carrying that anger and weight with you? So for me, I was very happy to use those as learning experiences without any bitterness going forward, because sometimes it it really wasn't their fault. Sometimes they just didn't have, like you said, the training in a municipal fire department in that time of the 90s. They didn't have a lot of classroom certifications for leadership and management. Basically, they would throw out one or two industry textbooks, and that's what that year's lieutenant's test would be based on. And then so people would just write it, and if you got the high score, plus your interview, then you got promoted. And by taking the test a lot, the more senior you were, obviously, the better you got at it, the more you learned what they were looking for. And so there's a seniority benefit to it as well. But so many of the promotions were really just, you had a lot of years on the job. You've seen the test this many times, you kind of knew where they were going. And so back in the day, a lot of promotions weren't qualified through structured classes. They were really just exams that you could work your way through. So once again, people were just getting promoted because it was their turn.

Mick Spiers: 7:55

Yeah, interesting. So there's a few things there as well, Mark, to play back to you, though I love the power of letting it go, and a lot of people struggle with this. So the famous Maya Angelou quote, quote, people may forget what you said, they may forget what you did, but they'll never forget how you made them feel. People hang on to that shit. Sorry to swear for a second. People hang on to the way that they were treated for a very long time. And that's not serving you, and it's and they've forgotten about it a long time ago. There's this conversation seven years ago where someone treated you poorly. That person's had seven times, 365 days of not even thinking about that for a second, and you're still hanging on to it. That's one chapter. The second chapter I'm going to say to you, Mark, I still haven't found one yet. I'm I'm sure there's one out there. I haven't found a leader yet that wakes up in the morning and claps their hands together and says, right, what can I do today to be a real jerk to mark Andrew, they also don't do it on purpose. They're the hero of their own story, and they actually think they're doing a good job. They actually think they're doing good job. They're not doing it on purpose. So I think the sooner you let it go, I think that's a really powerful one, to give them some forgiveness that they didn't intend it. They didn't do it on purpose. One second, like you said, they didn't have the training. No one showed them how to be a leader. So give them a little bit of slack. Don't forgive them for horrible actions. Just just let it go and learn from it, which is what I love about your quote, I've been lucky. I've I've worked with some Horrible Bosses. How can I pocket that learning of how this person made me feel so that I don't do it to the next generation? How does that sit with you?

Mark Andrew: 9:41

That thing not doing it to the next generation was huge for me, because that was specifically words I've heard spoken. Well, that's what the senior guys did to me when I was young. So it's this guy's turn to take it. I've seen that and heard that so many. Times I said, Well, just because they piled on all the work and sat in the lazy board chair and watched you doesn't mean you have to sit in a lazy board chair all day and watch the young guy do all the work. One common dynamic was we had a lot of leaders that, back in the day, came out of the military, and some were awesome, and some struggled, and some just never got away from the drill instructor and recruit mentality, where you for those six weeks of basic training just brow beat people because you need to tear them down and build them back up. Some of our people that were in the military were incredible leaders, but they were usually people that promoted up and then saw teamwork out in action or out in the battlefield, and they truly understood the collaborative nature of of teamwork and managing people under circumstances. And so, yeah, with just a lot of managers back then, it was so common. Well, this is just the way they treated me, so it's someone else's turn to take it, and it just always rubbed me the wrong way.

Mick Spiers: 11:08

Yeah, really good. Okay, so we've got our got our first lesson here for the audience. Let's pause on this for a second and and say that you don't have to mimic the behavior of leaders before you. In fact, we're encouraging you not to do it, but you do need to learn from the behavior of the leaders before you. And in a moment, I'm going to ask you about some of the good attributes too, Mark, not just the bad, but if you've had a horrible boss, that's a great learning opportunity for you to Bank A bunch of statements, of things that you would never do to another human being, not, not to repeat it because, well, it's your turn now to repeat it to the next generation. You can be the pattern interrupt that does it differently. Okay, so we're learning from Horrible Bosses. We're learning what not to do, what about what we need to do, what makes a good leader for you, Mark, and how did you learn this?

Mark Andrew: 12:02

Hate to just glom on to the old management text buzz words, but I have found a lot of them to be true, but certainly you have to adapt them for every situation. And so you read leadership or management textbook talks about empathy and caring and listening, I've found that is so true in leading people, whether we're in the fire station in a boring situation or a 911 call that happens to be routine and mundane, or at an actual fire listening to your People, because sometimes they're going to have great ideas, and that was now, this is the positive thing that I saw some really good bosses do, but it's also one of the bad things I saw some bosses do. They didn't want to listen to their team because they, in my opinion, felt insecure about their knowledge, so they didn't want to listen, because then it meant people might challenge their decision, and I took the opposite standpoint. I wanted to care about what the team thought, and I wanted to listen to them, one, because they need it for their development. And two, in just a practical sense, if say, we're at a fire and the smoke is blowing in this direction, and I see flame out of this window, and I see these two entry doors, I'm going to need to know information, like, is there a person that's visible out the back window in the backyard that I didn't know about, or is there flame coming from another window? And so I need that information I can't see 360 degrees all at once. And so if I don't empower my people to be able to be blunt and just come up to me and say, Hey, boss, I saw this. Do you want to try this tactic? Then the whole operation is paralyzed, because now I'm making decisions based on my view of where I happen to be standing in the moment, so that caring about their thoughts and not only that, how they develop and how they're learning, but that listening, that listening is so key in a prior career, loading bags at an airline to some of the fire stations I was in, I had so many bosses that never listened to a word I said until things blew up and they say, Well, how come you didn't tell me? Man, I've been saying this for three months. Well, I, I don't know what you're talking about. We've, we've complained about this for a very long time. How did you not hear me? And so I'd love to just being able to sit down and listen to the crew.

Mick Spiers: 14:35

Yeah, that's a powerful example, Mark, and it's building the same picture of learning from those leaders before us, and with a very specific one. So what did the horrible boss do? I never felt I never felt heard, I never felt listened to. I witnessed them make sub optimal decisions because they didn't have all the information at hand. So I'm going to bank that and I'm. When I become the leader, I'm not going to do the same. And then the counterbalance is, Oh, that's interesting, that leaders a bit better. What are they doing differently? Oh, they are listening. So, so we've got, we've got two choices here from your story here, Mark, I think one is when the horrible boss does something that, you go, Well, that just didn't work. You bank that and go, Okay, what would the opposite look like? The opposite would look like listening, the opposite would look like care. The opposite would look like empathy. And then when you have those pockets of really good leaders, you go, Oh, that's interesting, that that worked. What worked? Oh, they listened. They had empathy, they cared. So we're starting to build the virtuous model as well as the pad model that we're going to look to pivot away from. How does that sit with you?

Mark Andrew: 15:45

I actually felt so comfortable in that mode of leadership. It was easily part of my nature. That was something that I did. I was able to do from day one once I was promoted from firefighter or driver to a lieutenant, wanting and caring about the people was something that came easy. Learning how to deploy that information is what took work. The same goes with doing versus delegating, as I love being hands on it. And so if we had an emergency scene, I love being in the thick of it with everybody. And if we have a medical scene, I'd like doing the medical skills, and I love participating on the team. But what I had to learn was when to step back and to not do too much, because then every time I do something for them, I'm taking away an opportunity for them to learn it themselves. And so those were definitely learning curves for me, having to learn when it's okay to step back and say, you guys got this, I'm going to stand back and just oversee the scene and I'm not going to physically do anything versus when, hey, it's time. It's in all hands. I'm going to jump right in and we're going to be in the middle of this. And so that listening helped me learn the difference between delegating and doing. I knew I was never going to be a micromanager. I knew not to do that, but it took me, easily, a year of going on 911 calls and over to learn how to step back and observe and then step in when needed and step back when they got it handled. Or is there a job not being done, then I'll just do that job, and we're a team. When everybody could do every job. We're all cross trained, but that was a balance that took legitimate work as a company officer.

Mick Spiers: 17:45

Yeah, really good Mark. So there's multiple threads in there that are very powerful for us all to hear. The first one is, you know, if we are very good at our craft, there's a good chance that we know the answer to a lot of questions. But if we, if we take control every time, all we're doing is becoming the bottleneck, and we are smothering the learning and growth of those people, right? And we're not a multiplier at this point. We're a diminisher. We've become the problem in the business. But the thing that I love the most was the situational leadership of you having that listening and that awareness, so that you knew when to step in and you knew when to lean back. That was the first part. So the situational awareness associated with that. But you can't have that situational awareness if you're not come back to your lesson before listening and the awareness. And then the second part I'm hearing there, and this is in your book, and I'm going to play it to you now, presence. So when you said that, you went back, you didn't disappear, you didn't abdicate, you were still present, but you didn't micromanage. So you've got an element in your book, presence versus micro management. So we've got, we've got this situational leadership where we're going to decide, when are we going to lean when are we going to lean back. But I want you to double down with us on what this means when you say presence at those moments?

Mark Andrew: 19:52

Absolutely. This was another thing that me and my peers talked about coming up the ranks in a municipal fire department, if you choose to delegate a lot of your daily routine to the to the senior firefighters one, they need some delegation. They need training and how reports are done, how staffing is set up, set up a training class for the crew, how to execute a training class for the crew. But that could go too far, where all of a sudden it gets comfortable to delegate everything to somebody else, to the point of, I've seen some poor officers give their computer passwords to the junior guys and just say, here, for training purposes, you handle all the report. It's and then they're now absolutely doing nothing, to a point where, in some municipal fire departments, sometimes they'll have a private room set up for the captain, and it's got a chair and it's got a bed and it's got a computer, it's got a TV with a full cable package, and so he gets comfortable sitting in there. And I noticed the crews where mistakes were happening, and one of the leadership failures that was common would be mistakes would happen. They'd happen again. They'd happen again. Then all of a sudden it blows up. It runs up the chain of command. And now the battalion chief, or the deputy chief, or even sometimes the top guy, the fire chief, will say, Well, what the heck's going on? I got all these mistakes, and the captain goes, not my fault. Nobody came and got me. Well, you had three months to observe and watch, and so you got to be present with your crew. You got to be out there. You can't be holed away in the boss in the office like a big boss. And I know this goes the same way at a in a factory or in a grocery store, the in management, text management by walking around, you got to get out there and be with the crew. Now what I learned later on was I can still delegate and be present. And a good example would be if I give a task to the senior firefighter, say somebody has got eight to 10 years on, and I say, Can you handle this task? And you'll say, Yes, I got it. We're going to do A, B and C, and what I'll do is say, not a problem. I'm going to go do my job because I've got my administrative duties to do. So I'll just leave it for three hours. But I would always follow up, hey, how did that project go? And then they would say, Oh, well, we got these supplies here. We're all ready for that state inventory tomorrow. We're missing this one piece. I've got the requisition in to the EMS chief. He's going to get us one by the end of the day. Then the rig is going to meet state standard Excellent. And so they know that I'm not just freely delegating, I'm delegating, but still have my eyes on the scene, even though I wasn't there doing the thing.

Mick Spiers: 22:51

Yeah, really good Mark. So I feel like we're touching on a multitude of mistakes that many leaders do make at some point in their career, and it's and it's whether they get the awareness to do something about it, or it might be drawn to their attention by someone else before they notice, right? So bear with me on this story. So the micro managing part is a very common mistake of many young leaders, and then at some point in their career, someone's going to say to them, Oh, you just need to delegate more. And then delegate more becomes that abdication that throw it to someone else and go and sit in the comfy chair. And that's not the answer either. The answer is this presence. It's not to abdicate your responsibilities and your accountabilities. It's to delegate. In fact, I'm going to say that when someone says to them, Oh, you just need to delegate more, no one shows them how to delegate properly either, so they they don't have the skill of how to do the delegation. And then they need to remember, it's not abdication. You then need to be present. You don't abdicate your responsibility. You don't have to abdicate your accountability. And that person that you just delegated to, they need to know that you're there for them. You're their safety net. So we're going to go from early mistake micromanaging, then to delegation becomes abdication, and we need to bring it back into this presencing that you're talking about, but then knowing when how to turn the dial, then the knowing when is what you said about five minutes ago, knowing when to lean in a little bit more and when to lean back a little bit more. But I never disappeared. I never disappeared. How's that summary for you?

Mark Andrew: 24:36

Yeah, I'm in complete agreement. I love your word abdication. That is definitely true. There's a difference between delegating and just abdicating. And an example would be, we get a new tool, and we have to have a training class. So we are going to take this tool out in the back of the station. I'm going to be there, and everybody's going to participate. Everybody comes out onto the apparatus floor, and we're going to break this tool out, and we're going to run it through its paces. We're going to take it apart, we're going to put it together, we're going to show where it's stored on the rig. Everybody's going to do one hands on rep with it, and including me. And if one of the junior people, say, had some experience in this new tool, I'll be happy to delegate them to lead the training class, so now they feel empowered. Hey, my skills are being recognized and my talents are being recognized, and I feel listened to. And so that would be an example of, hey, this is a situation where everybody's got to be. Here. We all need to know how to work this tool. I can't abdicate this and go watch TV an opposite example. Say, we have a fire and we have a brand new rookie, and I noticed I assigned him. He's got to get a ladder and an ax and a chainsaw to this side of the house, and he's got to climb on top of the roof, and he struggled carrying the ladder, and he wasn't sure what tools to grab, and it took him a while to get there. But because there, these are expectations I laid out ahead of time to the crew that they know these are tasks that I consider routine and like them to be done quickly, and we've trained on it, I'll have a meeting in private, in confidence with the two senior firefighters, once again, those seven to 10 year people, and they'll say, Hey, I noticed that that fire, our rookie kind of was struggling with the latter, and more often than not, both of them will say, Don't worry, boss, we saw the same thing. I've got an idea. Great. What did you see? Were you struggling with the carry? He wasn't sure whether he should make two trips or carry both, or she put on shoulders. She put on his hip. I said, Well, let's button this up with some in house training. And one of the firefighters would say, you know, I have a really good Ladder Exercise. How about after lunch, I'm going to take all the young guys, and then the five of us, we're going to go out behind the fire station, and we're going to raise ladders and have him climb up on the roof. We're going to do different carries, and we're going to do this and that. And then this is, this goes back to what you had said, and I'd love to this quote you had, you had an episode a few episodes ago with a gentleman named Salvatore, and you talked about being heard and understood when you're giving direction to your crew. And this is something I had to pick up as a skill. So I then would say to them for this ladder training. Okay, so once again, you're going to do this exercise. These people are involved. You're going to do it at this time frame. What types of skills are you going to review? And they would repeat it back to me. I would say, Great. Do you need me to get involved in any way? And they would say, No, cap we got it, which tells me they proudly want to handle this. They're looking forward to the project because they've bought in to the team improving. So now I could say, great, because I actually legitimately have work to do, so I'm going to break away, and then just I'll let them handle it. I don't go out there and watch them. I don't micromanage them. And then later in the afternoon or after dinner, I would say, Oh, hey, how did that class go? And then they would clearly state to me, we did a b and c. We're going to work on C a little bit more tomorrow as well, but we've made some improvements in A and B, perfect. You need anything from me, not a problem. I'll put the training in the computer and log it down, excellent, and then it's handled. They knew I'm still staying on top of it, but they also knew they felt empowered to be seen by the rookie as as their next in command and their leader.

Mick Spiers: 28:48

That was really powerful. There's multiple facets I'm picking up there. It started with the situational leadership, which was wonderful. It then quickly turned into co creation, where you've got different eyes and ears, seeing, seeing and hearing different things, but you collected all of those inputs, and you you prove that you're smarter together. There's not one person has a monopoly, and all of the best ideas. Then you had the confirmation. You had the confirmation of, Hey, are we all on the same page here? Oh yeah, we are awesome. And then you had the Empower, empowerment and trust, and in that chain, like, if you didn't do that confirmation page, and thank you for mentioning Salvatore and that that topic, because if you don't do that confirmation, you can empower them and trust them, but they go off on a different tangent. And the world is full of examples of conversations where two people walk away with a completely different understanding of what we just agreed. But then off they go. They often run, but that confirmation stage is really empower, really important. And then came the empowerment and trust. Well, you've got it. Off you go. Let me know how you go. And then the check back in later. How did it go What Did We Learn? Really powerful Mark, I love it all right. I want to change gears a little bit here. We've covered a lot of really good ground already.

Mark Andrew: 30:08

Mick, fish, that thoughts with a quote Salvatore had from your prior episode you talked about a question and answer session in a corporate setting is truly not about the specific answer. It's about building relationships. I would apply that also to being a first responder, because when we have those training topics and I'm throwing out problems in the field, I don't need a specific answer. I need to judge where are they. At with their knowledge base, and do they have new thoughts to bring to the table, or are these training topics they're just lacking in, and I need to beef them up. But those conversations aren't just strictly me lecturing and me doing a Q, a. It really is building a relationship, and that's that's why that episode was so powerful.

Mick Spiers: 31:00

And drawing it out. You're drawing it out. It's not a lecture. Yeah, that's really good Mark. Okay, all right, so I want to spend a bit of time learning a little bit more of what we can learn from your industry and apply it into other industries, because it is a pressure cooker situation that I don't think all of us stop and think about a lot. So you talk in your book about the difference between commanding and inspiring. So I want to know a little bit more about that. But then the specific question is, when I think about fires, most of us are thinking about getting away from that fire. You're inspiring people to run into that fire. Now, I'm not experienced or knowledgeable enough to know how to do that safely, but how do you inspire someone to run towards a fire instead of away from a fire?

Mark Andrew: 31:51

We're fortunate in the fire service, the majority of people that do it really, really want to do it as a passion. It's not an easy job to get. It is competitive. It's a little easier. Now, in this modern labor market, we're getting less of the Gen Z generation going into the labor sector in general, but specifically being a first responder. So we have less applicants now, but it is still competitive. You still got to get out there. It's a number of years of community college or trade school. It's a couple of years of working for a volunteer department or private ambulance. So the people that come in generally really like it. And so we're fortunate that when our job gets the most hard, it gets the most fun. So we all love going to fires. It having somebody having a horrible day and they're calling us for help is one rewarding that we get to save their property and maybe once in a while save their life. But the app physically put a fire is just labor, adrenaline pumping work. And so one you've got the adrenaline behind you, but another way that I would try to inspire is this is now the time where I'm not strictly just delegating. I would always be doing. So when I came on the job, we had a number of officers, and I'm a bigger city, so we've got a lot of people at a fighter scene. So we have the ability where we have a chief who's an incident commander, who stands always outside with a full view of the structure, and makes command decisions. We also have the ability to have the second ranking officer, or maybe third ranking officer stand by and assist them. From a command standpoint, the problem is, is we would have some officers who, when work was needed, were due to age, due to injury, due to just would want to stand in the background. And so we had some fire officers just without even an air pack on, their coat open while their crew is doing all the work. I wanted to be one of those officers that would go in and be with my crew at all times. The mindset of saying, I'm never going to do that. I'm going to ask you to do any I'm unwilling to do myself, and so I inspired by always being there with the crew. So if we're taking a hose line into a house, I will be in front of my crew, sounding out the floor, looking for some hazards. My partner would come up beside me with the hose line. I'm maybe moving my hand searching for victims. I'm moving my ax around to see if I can knock a window open, and my partner's right there with me, rather than me behind my partner, saying, Go on in there and feeding them the hose. My publisher from my book leading through the heat had some rights free photographs that he said, Hey, I got these rights free photographs. I said, Absolutely not. I insist the pictures on the front and the back and the inside of the book are all me on roof fire scenes. So this is actually me on the front cover. And I insisted on that because it was part of how I commanded and inspired people by being there with them, physically doing the job.

Mick Spiers: 35:22

Yeah, really, good Mark. So, so there's two distinct things I'm hearing here. One is the inspiration is tapping into passion and purpose. And if you can tap into that passion and purpose, you're a long. A journey towards not having to tell someone what they need to do because they already know. And then the second one is that you're leading with them. You're not pushing them into the battle or the fire. You're there hand in hand. We're going to do this together. I think both of those chapters are powerful. Okay, really, good. Now you tapped on something I was going to ask later, so I'm going to I'm going to jump to this one now, the other one I'm curious about is decision making in a fire. In my industry, we talk a lot about fatigue. Yours is going to add something to this in a second. We talk a lot about fatigue and not trusting your tired self and having very good decision making frameworks before you get fatigued. You already know, okay, if we get to this point, here's our parameters. Here's what will how we'll make the decision. This is the criteria for the decision. We talk about, being prepared before we get fatigued. With the right decision making framework for you, I'm going to add this adrenaline in. Tell me about decision making in a fire crew, when people start getting tired, but they're also jacked up on adrenaline?

Mark Andrew: 36:50

That actually takes practice and work. We call it reading the smoke, knowing you're building construction that that is legitimate. Just years of being out there doing the job, I could see it in textbooks. I could watch or how does the heat flow upwards? How does it flow laterally? What's this building structure going to be like once I get inside? Where are the bedrooms going to be, versus where the kitchen is going to be? And that knowledge legitimately just comes through time, which is why we we hope that this have a certain amount of years on. We don't even let people write for Lieutenant until, I believe you, you make it to the second, yeah, to the second rank. So you've probably got about seven years on, or you're even eligible to write the exam and to have in the team here that passion can get in the way. So the phrase we use in the fire service is moths to a flame. We don't want to just have everybody go to where they see the big orange glow. I'm going to need people to set up a water supply at the fire hydrant. I'm going to need people to raise the left to the roof case the hot, sweet maybe find a victim. I'm going to need people to force the front door open with some pry bars. And then I'm going to need to walk all the way around the house get a view of all four sides while my partner is stretching the hose line apart. We have to run in a structured kind of a scenario. So for us, the fire knowledge and the constant drilling and training of what the expectations are are how we manage that passion, because if you just let it go, the passion and adrenaline will override the people, and then you've got eight people going into the fire, and I've got two people outside doing the support work, and that's just not enough.

Mick Spiers: 38:48

Yeah, great. Yeah, good. Okay, so, so it's quite multifaceted. I don't think any of us listening to the show have got that knowledge and experience that you've got, but I can see the fact that it's quite considered decision making to make sure that you got going to use this word, you got all bases covered as best as you can. And all situations like you spoke about, oh, what if we what if we come across a person? What are we going to do? But you're deciding those things. I'm going to say almost beforehand, not perfectly, because, you know the fire is going to throw some curve balls at you, but you've got some ideas. Okay, if we find a person, this is what we're going to do. If we find this, this is what we're going to do. Yeah, really good. Thank you for that Mark, now the other chapter I want to tap into also is, in your book, you talk a lot about trust and you talk a lot about integrity. Want to double down on this word trust. I feel like it's important in any industry, but in your industry, and I'm going to say probably in the military as well, it's tenfold. How do you build that trust with each other?

Mark Andrew: 39:55

For me, it goes right back to where we started caring about people having some empathy and being a good listener. Most of the time when a person's making mistakes, are they dealing with something off the job that's a personal distraction. And so in the fire service, we try not to jump straight to discipline. I would say almost 95% of the issues I ever with this officer will be able, were able to be handled with an informal talk. And so if somebody is making mistakes, asking them, Hey, I've noticed you're not yourself late. Slightly tell me what's going on, and most of the times, they'll respect that you cared enough to ask. They'll respect that you trusted them with this information and confidence. And now I could use that information to maybe change some assignments, provide them a break with some other assignments. I could provide them some training, if it's a topic they're not good in, I could provide them some assistance if it's an off the job issue, but letting them know when they're struggling that they're still a valuable member of the team was one of the groundwork things for trust. It gets different when people are making egregious mistakes, then you've got to have the ability to hold them accountable, because if you let those mistakes happen, it just poisons the whole crew. And now the team sees this person getting away with things, and they start to wonder if they can get away with things. So having a standard but being a good listener is a great way to have that trust and just the day to day communication with the crew being present, letting them see you as one, their boss and their leader, but also as as a human being. And that, I think the trust in the fire service at least just comes naturally, but we have the benefit if we live in that 24 hours a day, and you'll work with your same crew for a year to two years before there's ever a transfer. So you you intimately get to know everybody.

Mick Spiers: 42:07

Yeah, very good. Okay, so feeling that people have got each other's back is what is the care and empathy and then knowing each other, just getting to know each other, that I can see that there was also an element there of vulnerability, and in what you're you're sharing you, you said that I care enough about you to have this conversation, and we can, we can have that trusted conversation. So it happens in those micro moments as well. I think, yeah, really powerful mind. All right, you've given us a lot to think about. Today. I'm going to give a little bit of summary of some key takeaways and actions here, right? So everyone listening to the show have a think about Mark's very first sentence. I've been lucky. I've worked with some Horrible Bosses, right? That the key takeaway here is don't make the behavior of leaders before you learn from them, learn from them, and then forge your own model of leadership based on what you liked and what you didn't like. So when you have a horrible boss, it's not there. It's not necessarily their fault. They didn't know better, though they were making the behavior of leaders before them, and they probably didn't have the knowledge and training to know what it means to be a good boss. But learn from it. Learn from what did they do? How did they make you feel? And bank a little recipe book of things that you would never do to another human being. When you're lucky enough to have a good boss, have a look at it and go, Oh, wow, yeah, what do they do? What do they do that's working? And bank that into your book, into your book of things that you will do with other human beings. There's other things there around micro management versus delegation and abdication. Chances are you will make a mistake in your career where you start to micromanage. Most people do that at some point. The answer is not the opposite. It's not to abdicate and just let go. Listen to what Mark said about being present. There's a situational leadership element of knowing when to lean in and when to lean back, but when you lean back, you're not disappearing, you're not abdicating, and you're going to be present for your team. And have a think about all of the lessons that Mark has said. How many times did Mark say in this interview about listening, about listening, listening to your team, showing that you care for your team, share, showing that you see them, that you hear them at that you value their opinions. These things are at the heart of leadership, including building this trust that we spoke about in the last chapter today. So this is your homework. Have a think about all of the bosses that you've had in your career, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, and think about how you can learn from each of them. And then to start thinking about your own situational leadership, of when you're going to lean in, when you're going to lean back, and how you're going to be present with your team, and how you're going to listen to your team. Okay, Mark, I'm going to take us now to our Rapid Round. These are the same four lessons for saying four questions. Sorry that we ask all of our guests, what's the one thing that you know now? Mark Andrew, that you wish you knew when you were 20?

Mark Andrew: 45:11

How important listening is. It's a wonderful quote from leadership author Michael wilnick. He says leadership starts with listening, and I didn't really grab on to that until I started, well into my 20s, working in an airline loading bags, and I had and this happened in the fire service to when, as we went from EMT to para. A medic licensure and advanced life support, cardiac drugs, EKGs. Bosses, even at airline, they did not know how to do the job I was doing. And so when I would try to explain what my needs are, what the rules are, where this bag has to go versus this concourse and this road and this incoming airplane, and what's the timeframe I get to get this luggage to here versus getting the second set of luggage over there? They just didn't understand what I was talking about. And if it wasn't done the way they wanted would, would just write me up. And so I had this list of write ups, even though I would say no, I got the bag there on time. They said, Yes, but I like it done this way, yeah, but your way will lead to complete failure, and we're going to pay a bunch of bad fines. And they would say, Well, I just what you're saying doesn't make sense to me. And so nobody was listening. And so I learned the hard way, that if you're not willing to listen to your workers, you're falling behind as a leader as well.

Mick Spiers: 46:37

Yeah, very powerful. And sums up a lot of some of the things we've discussed today, Mark, what's your favorite book?

Mark Andrew: 46:45

"YOU'RE A LEADER NOW WHAT?" is certainly one of the, one of my more modern favorites? I really, really enjoyed it going back into the 90s. There's an economist named Thomas Sowell. So it's way, way off topic. He had a book called conflict of visions. It's very, very academic, but it just talks a lot about how social, workplace and even political thought develop over time, varying through economic strata and cultural differences. And I just learned a lot about how people think and how to be accepting of a diversity of thought in a modern sense, you just you can't get away from, yeah, well, sorry, I'm saying in a modern sense. Mel Robbins, her let them theory book is just right at the forefront of what we're talking about today.

Mick Spiers: 47:41

Yeah. Yeah. Really good. Okay, excellent. Mick, you already gave us one powerful quote just a moment ago. But what is your favorite quote?

Mark Andrew: 47:48

Oh, God, I've got a number I threw. Do throw a few out in the book. I guess my favorite I'm going to go to Jocko wilnick again. He says a leader should participate in the suffering. And it goes back to our talk about when it is getting hard, when it is getting difficult, you got to be there with your team. If I'm a project manager at a auto company. So I'm right next to Ford Motor Company, and I lead a team of eight engineers, and we got to design this fender or this front of a car, and I got to figure out the torque of the vehicle versus the wind direction and the air resistance. And we got a deadline, and these guys are going to pull an all nighter. If I'm the leader of those engineers, I'm pulling the all nighter too, and I'm crunching those numbers, and I'm on the blueprint table, and it's the same at the fire scene rough. I'm there with my partner with the AX, he's there with the chainsaw, and we're both up there equally doing it.

Mick Spiers: 48:49

Yeah, really good, Mark, and the book is full of very powerful quotes. Each chapter has got a powerful quote that's a great encapsulation of the of the lesson in that chapter. So, yeah, really good. And finally, how do people find you? Mick, there's going to be people that are listening to this and definitely want to get a couple copy of the book, but they want to know more about you and and to learn from you. How do they find you?

Mark Andrew: 49:13

I'll send you an Amazon link to put in the description. I'm also on Instagram @markdbnfire, and there I've got some helmet cam, and hopefully, shortly after we record, I've got the paper back up Amazon's going to be, hopefully this week, doing a full eBook, hardcover and press release full Amazon platform launch. So I'll send you the Amazon link to the paperback that's for sale today.

Mick Spiers: 49:41

Excellent. All right. Well Well done, Mark, thank you so much. Thank you for all that you do, by the way, not not just for the gift that you've given us today, of your your wisdom and experience. All of us count on firefighters. None of it, I'll be blunt, most of us don't know what the hell to do if there was a fire. We probably need more fire knowledge, just in the general public, I would say, but, but we, we count on you and all of your your peers and your colleagues, the service that you do running into fires to save people's lives and properties, their pets, I can't thank you enough for for your service, and then for today. Thank you for your time, for your wisdom and your experience. You've given us a lot to think about and a lot that we can action. Thank you so much, Mark.

Mark Andrew: 50:24

You're very welcome, and I got to say I learned from you. In fact, I'm going to steal your word abdicate and use it in my leadership talks. It was a great way to describe it.

Mick Spiers: 50:36

Okay, all right, awesome, Mark, thank you. Bye. Got another powerful conversation here. There are so many practical leadership lessons in this episode, but a few really stand out for me. First, leadership is not about Title status or standing back from the work. It's about presence. It's about being with your team, understanding the reality on the ground and knowing when to step in and when to step back second, listening came through again and again in this conversation, listening to your team, listening for what people are seeing that you may not see, listening not just to respond, but to understand, to build trust and to make better decisions. And third mark reminded us that many leaders simply repeat what has been done to them, but great leaders make a different choice. They learn from the good, the bad and the ugly, and then become more intentional about the kind of leader they want to be. So here's the reflection question for you, what leadership patterns have you inherited, and which of them do you need to keep challenge or let go of? And my second challenge for you is to think about your own team this week. Where do you need to be more present, more intentional and more willing to listen? If you enjoyed this episode of the leadership project, please share it with another leader who would benefit from it. In the next episode, it's going to be a solo cast where I reflect on the amazing lessons from all of our guests through the month of March. You've been listening to The Leadership Project. If today sparked an insight, don't keep it to yourself. Share it with one other person who would benefit from listening to the show. A huge thank you to Gerald Calibo for his tireless work editing every episode, and to my amazing wife, Sei, who does all the heavy lifting in the background to make this show possible? None of this happens without them around here. We believe leadership is a practice, not a position, that people should feel seen, heard, valued, and that they matter, that the best leaders trade ego for empathy, certainty for curiosity and control for trust. If that resonates with you, please subscribe on YouTube and on your favorite podcast app, and if you want more, follow me on LinkedIn and explore our archives for conversations that move you from knowing to doing until next time, lead with curiosity, courage and care.